Dirak's Demesne
See also: Anumarakhe, Dantri, Wolf who Blinded Fate, Seregan the Far-Seeing, Shrouder, Defier of Muert, The Conqueror Summary Dirakk is a lich and a mage of many talents. He arrived in his current system after literally floating through space at close to light speed for aeons. His prime motivator is the destruction of the eldritch monsters that occasionally poke through the fabric of space-time on their quest to dominate naive sentients as gods, which fill him with unparalleled hate. Otherwise, however, he is something of a nihilist, believing his choice of immortality to be the most selfless thing a being can do. Intro Traitor. Heretic. Necromancer. Murderer. Despot. He had been called all of these things once. He missed the voices now, in a way. It was so interesting to see the minds of mortals try to rationalize him. But Dirakk had not heard the sound of another language for thousands of years. Not since he had left his home in pursuit of his foes. It was not as though he was homesick. No, they hadn't understood him there. It was too much for those poor peoples to comprehend his words: reality was meaningless, existence a dream. Life was all a cruel trick played by an uncaring, unmoving god. It had driven them to rebel against his otherwise peaceful rule. They had called him mad, as he had brought sanity. And so many had come to die, and come to walk again. He had needed them, and his commands were more important that solemn rest. Of course it was decried as necromancy. He cared little. It was merely another manipulation of the Dream, as all mages had done before him. But now that task was finished, and the bones dismissed to their decay. His planet was safe. As long as none were foolish enough to destroy what he had built, Dirakk would have his final curse to the Dreamer, his legacy to withstand the end of time. Perhaps, if he was successful, he might even return some day. Dirakk's reminiscing is interrupted by the sound of energy arcing betweeen the magical wards in sectors G and H. In an instant, he departs his motionless orbit of the molten planet which held his study and makes for the site of the disturbance. Another horror had arrived to be slain. The mage's barrier strains and buckles as the first tentacle pushes its way through the fabric of reality, space itself protesting the horror's entry along with them. Dozens of tiny explosions are instantly consumed by black holes all along the tear, which widens as the beast's many-eyed snout pushes into the system. Its eyes apathetically scan the system's planets and their moons simultaneously, focusing for a moment on the ring at its center before it finally pulls itself into reality with an almost comical pop. Dirakk knew what would happen next. The creature would make its way onto a planet of sentients and begin corrupting them to worship it as a god. It was their way, their purpose. In that worship they might become as important as their progenitor. But Dirakk's eyes had long since been opened. He would not suffer such a creature to live. With a rage honed by hundreds of lifetimes spent floating in the darkness of space, Dirakk launches himself at the titanic creature, its tentacles bursting into life the instant it senses his magic. They lance across his armor, deflecting off the shining spelltempered stone like so many feathers. His response is swift, a burst of brilliant green energy channeled from his bony hand. It bursts through the slimy hide of the horror, its entrails and ichors pulled outward into the void as one of its many pulsating sacks begins to decompress. The monster releases a psychic cry, which would paralyze the untrained mind. To Dirakk, it was the beautiful sound of success. As the creature flails at him once more, the lich dives forward into the open wound, his hands burning with brilliant emerald flames. Within the tortured creature he performs a macabre dance, causing it to convulse and contort with pain before he finally erupts from its jet black muzzle, a trail of green flame in his wake. As the horror sighs its final breath, the tiny white flames within Dirakk's eyeless sockets seem to cackle happily above his permanently exposed smile. Another day, another victory. He sets about restoring the wards around the system before searching through the creature's remains for any useful components. As he works, he pauses and glances up once more at the massive ring at the system's center. While he had quickly divined it to be some sort of transportation device, he had meant to use his volcanic laboratory to discover exactly how to activate and power it. How long had he been caught up in thought? No matter. With his rage sated, he was sure he could resume focus on the task at hand. He pushes the vast quantity of components into his infinite cloak, and begins his descent towards the land of smoke and lava. It reminded him of his last creation, the Moldren. Hopefully the slackers hadn't gone to sleep, they had an entire planet to sustain. Background Dirakk has known many names in his absurdly long lifespan, but they all originated on his home planet. There, he was raised as a mage by his people, the Monks of Len-Shay. The Len-Shay, and by extension Dirakk, were a humanoid race ranging from 5-7 feet tall, who practiced a philosophy of distancing one's self from reality, choosing to believe that this life was a dream and that reality would come in the awakening after death. While he hated this notion deeply, Dirakk devoted himself to the ways of magic, becoming incredibly skilled at manipulating the "Dream". In his travels, however, he discovered a dark secret about the essence of the Dream linking it to the cosmic horrors that his people had long t aught to slay. His response was to perform the ancient and forbidden rites of lichedom, making himself immortal and greatly increasing his magical powers. He in turn was decried as a traitor to his people, and his efforts to protect himself eventually lead to his conquest of first the monks, and eventually the annexation of the entire planet, which he named Dirakkis. In the 5,732nd year of his eternal reign, he decided to leave the Dirakkis, in order to investigate the source of the eldritch horrors. To protect the planet in his absence, he created the Dark Moon, a shield around the planet powered by draining minuscule amounts of life force from each being on the planet. However, due to several miscalculations in the tremendously powerful spell, Dirakkis was cleansed of nearly all life, and the heat completely sapped from its molten core. Dirakk's last act, however, was to ensure that life would evolve on the planet once more, creating the Moldren, a race of immortal lava elementals, to replace the planet's ruined core. Category:Nationbuilder IX: Stationbuilder